Beg for Mercy (17 page)

Megan’s stomach hurt reading it. They had no idea how lost a girl could get, how even if no one was forcing her, it would seem impossible to go home.

Her cell phone blared and she recognized Devany’s ringtone. Megan snatched it up, grateful for the distraction. “How are you doing?” she asked when she answered. Devany was still pretty shaken up from the other night. “Did you manage to sleep?”

“Yeah,” Dev replied. “I kinda need to talk to you about that. I’ve been having these dreams.”

She could relate. “The nightmares are normal, Dev, and they’ll pass. But you should definitely bring them up in your counseling session tomorrow.”

“It’s not that…. It’s—” She broke off. “Do you think the killer saw me?”

Megan bit her lip. She didn’t want to lie, but she didn’t want to ratchet up Dev’s anxiety. “The important thing is you didn’t see him,” Megan replied.

“That’s the thing. I’ve been having these dreams, and I think I did see something after all.”

Megan sat up straighter. “You think you saw the killer? You have to call the police—”

“Not the killer—the dead girl. I think I know her.”

“From where?”

The other line was silent for several seconds. “A couple years ago, before my mom got busted the last time, I took off for a while.”

Megan knew all of this from Dev’s file. She’d run away from the house her mom shared with the boyfriend who turned out to be a registered sex offender and had spent nearly two months on the streets. The thought of twelve-year-old Dev out there on her own still made her queasy, but somehow the girl had made it through without being sexually assaulted or seriously injured. “You met her then?” Megan’s skin broke out in goose bumps. If she could find information about where Bianca had worked, who her pimp was…“You’re sure?”

“I didn’t recognize her at first when I saw her….” Dev’s voars ailed off, and Megan heard her swallow. “But I keep dreaming of that night, of finding her, and this morning it finally stuck. She has a mark on her shoulder, kind of like a tattoo, but it’s not a tattoo. It’s a scar, in the shape of a moon and some stars.”

A crescent moon surrounded by three smaller stars, to be exact. Megan had seen it in the autopsy photos Cole had shown her. But Megan couldn’t let Devany know that without outing Cole for feeding her information.

“Do you remember her name?”

“She said her name was Bibi, and I met her a couple times when I was crashing at the mission down on Thirty-ninth.”

Megan knew Mission St. Jude—and its director, Sister Mary Theresa Goczeski—well. “So Bibi was homeless too?”

“No… at least, I don’t think so. She never said, but she was too clean and dressed too nice, and when I saw her, she was mostly helping out with meals and stuff. But I remembered the scar because she would wear these tank tops and the nun who ran the mission was always telling her to cover up.”

“If she wasn’t homeless, do you know where she lived, where she worked?”

“No,” Dev said. “She didn’t talk much about herself. She just always told me I should go home before I got into real trouble.”

“We need to tell the police.”

“No!”

Megan could hear real fear in her voice. “If you’re worried about getting in trouble for not telling them sooner, don’t worry. This kind of thing happens all the time. I’ll go with you if you want—”

“You don’t get it. If I tell them, they’re going to start snooping around, asking questions, and if it gets out that I’m the one who sent the cops around, I could end up worse than Bibi.”

Megan sighed, knowing Dev’s fear wasn’t completely unjustified. “Fine, I’ll tell them and I’ll be sure to keep your name out of it. Deal?”

“Deal.”

Thirty minutes later, Cole ducked into the conference room and slid into a seat next to Petersen.

The rest of the task force was already in attendance, and Special Agent Tasso stood at the front of the room. Behind him was a whiteboard with pictures of the victims, as well as a map of the West Coast. “Now that Detective Williams is here, we can get started. As you all know, we’ve identified the Slasher’s latest victim as Bianca Delagrossa, who was reported missing on August twelfth, 2004.” Tasso indicated a photo that stood out from the rest because it wasn’t taken at a morgue. In it, a pretty teenage girl gave a flirty smile to the camera through thick, dark lashes. Glossy black hair spilled over her shoulders.

“The San Diego police treated it as a runaway case based on information given to them byr mother. They could find no trace of her, until now.” He pointed to another photo. There was no smile in this photo. Bianca lay silent and still, her dark hair dull, her pretty features looking as if they were carved in gray marble.

“As of now, we don’t know anything about her other than her name. Not how she got up here, where she lived, who her pimp was. But if we can find that out, maybe we can figure out what links her to the other victims.”

Tasso started to toss out orders. “Blake, I want you to run the other victims through the facial-recognition program again, see if we get another hit on a cold case. And be sure to cross-reference internationally. No reason to think some of these girls weren’t trafficked in.”

Agent Blake, who sported a goatee and heavy-framed glasses, nodded.

“I plan to release a statement in the next forty-eight hours, but for now, the victim’s identity is strictly confidential. We haven’t even notified her parents yet.”

Cole’s collar went a little tight around his neck, and he told himself to relax, reminding himself that Megan had promised to keep it quiet.

But she’s leaked stuff to the press before. When it comes to her brother, do you really think you can trust her?

He shoved aside the doubts. Leaking the victim’s identity wouldn’t serve any purpose, and Megan wouldn’t do it out of pure malice.

“Detective Williams, Detective Petersen, I want you to find out everything you can about our victim, where she lived, who her friends were.”

“Yes, sir.” Cole stood, followed by Petersen. “We thought we’d start by running down people in the city who do these scar tattoos,” Petersen said, indicating the close-up of Bianca’s moon and stars. “We’re hoping that will get us an address, maybe a neighborhood she was working.”

Cole nodded. “It’s a place to start.” Not that Cole thought it would get them anywhere. Even if they could nail down where she lived, it had been clear from the first victim, and was more so now, that if the victims were prostitutes, they weren’t part of the ordinary downtown crew. These girls were high-end, well maintained, free of disease or any indication of drug abuse.

And well protected from the police. Any prostitute who worked the same territory ended up in the system eventually, whether through a roundup by vice, a drug bust, or an assault that landed her in the hospital.

Whoever worked these girls had resources to keep them off the streets, out of the system; they had the ability to erase their lives and give them entirely new identities.

And whoever was killing them worked on the inside.

Now tell us something we didn’t know, Sherlock.

“Who knows, maybe there’s something about Bianca that will pull this whole mess together,” Cole said as he and Petersen exited the conference room.

“Detective Williams,” Tasso called after him. “A word, please?”

“I’ll catch up with you,” he told Olivia. “Yes, sir?”

Though Cole topped him by about three inches and thirty pounds, Tasso still cut an imposing figure. With his military bearing and piercing stare, he wore his authority like an invisible cloak. “I noticed you requested copies of the victims’ files.”

Shit. Should have known Tasso would keep close tabs on everyone.
“I wanted to go over them on my own. See if anything new jumped out at me.”

Tasso cocked a thick eyebrow. “And? Anything of interest?”

Nothing to do with this case.
He didn’t know Tasso well, but he knew his work and respected him. Having always prided himself on being up front and honest, Cole didn’t like having to go behind his back. “Nothing we weren’t already aware of.”

“Keep me updated on any new information you discover.”

He didn’t even consider bringing up the perceived similarities with Sean’s case. Megan had already gone to Tasso herself and had been dismissed out of hand as a delusional woman who was desperate to grasp at anything that might exonerate her brother.

Tasso’s assessment was pretty dead-on.

Still, some of Megan’s delusion must have rubbed off on him, because as he headed back to the bull pen, he
couldn’t shake that nagging feeling that maybe they were missing something. First the TV left on, then the cuts…

An ambidextrous killer and a calculated frame job. It was like something out of a movie, nothing that could happen in real life.

As much as he wanted to help Megan, it would be career suicide to push to reopen Sean’s case on such flimsy evidence.

Yet he couldn’t get Megan’s haunted face out of his head.

“Ready to go?” Olivia said as he passed her desk.

Whatever follow-up he was going to do on Sean’s case would have to wait for later. “Let’s hit it.”

M
ission St. Jude was located just within walking distance of the famous Pike Place Market. During the day, the downtown area was spit shined for the tourists. Few visitors ever realized that only a few blocks away was the dark world of Seattle’s homelessness, drug trade, and prostitution.

Megan had a twinge of conscience as she approached the entrance. She’d promised Dev she’d tell the police, and she would, she promised herself. After she’d had a chance to ask a few questions on her own.

She wasn’t interfering with the FBI’s investigation, she rationalized. She was going to tell Cole what Devany had revealed. But not before she found out everything Sister Mary Theresa—or Sister MT as she was known in the neighborhood—remembered about Bianca Delagrossa.

Megan had first met Sister Mary Theresa four years ago when she’d gotten involved as a court advocate. Within a week, thirteen-year-old Courtney had run away and Megan eventually tracked her to the mission, just two streets over from the girl’s apartment. Sister MT had spotted Courtney lurking in a doorway, huddled against the cold and damp. When Megan arrived, Courtney was
wrapped in a sweater two sizes too big, sipping cocoa and playing a board game with a group of kids. Within five minutes, it became clear Sister MT kept tabs on everyone.

Homeless, drug addicts, prostitutes, and runaways, Sister MT greeted them all with open arms, and she never forgot a face.

Megan showed Sister MT the photo she’d downloaded from the missing-and-exploited-children’s Web site. “A friend of mine said Bianca used to come in here,” Megan said.

“Oh yeah, Bibi.” Sister MT’s eyes flashed in recognition. “She was an interesting one. Showed up here the first time about four years ago, looking for a bed and a hot meal. Beautiful girl, but so beaten down. She worked the neighborhood for a while and I’d see her every so often.”

“Do you know who her pimp was?”

Sister MT frowned. “Ruby,” she called over to a young woman who sat hovered over a cup of coffee. “You remember this girl? You know who her pimp was?”

Ruby pushed herself up and made her way slowly, carefully across the room. As she drew closer, Megan could see why she was moving like an eighty-year-old. One eye was swollen nearly shut, and a purple bruise blossomed across her left cheekbone. Her skintight jeans and hoodie hid other painful injuries, if the way she carefully sank into her chair was anything to go by.

Megan felt a tug of sympathy and darted a look at Sister MT, who quickly verified her suspicions.

“Ruby got knocked around by a trick the other night, so she’s hiding out with us for a few days,” Sister MT said, with her typical matter-of-fact delivery and complete lack
of censure. She held out her hand, and Megan handed over Bianca’s picture.

Ruby shook her head. “I don’t think I seen her working around here.”

Megan looked at Sister MT. “But you’re sure she was hooking around here.”

The nun nodded. “That was a while ago. I didn’t see her at all for a couple of years; then she showed up with an envelope of cash and said she wanted to volunteer.”